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Egypt 360 --- مصر ٣٦٠ ฎ
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Views on Egypt's Labor Force:
The goal of this page is to present to Egyptian leaders our experience working with
Egyptians and Arabs in general.
The goal is:
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List some basic or ideal characteristics of a working individual in a team
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Looking at Two Scenarios of an Egyptian Team and a Team from India
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Provide guidelines on how to help Egypt's Labor Force
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Our analysis can definitely use the principles in the Koran, Prophet Mohamed's (PBUH) Hadiths and Christian teachings.
The following is our list of worker's characteristics:
Attitudes:
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Positive attitude
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Motivated
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Self starter
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Soft Skills:
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Knowledge base
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Initiative
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Dependable
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Flexible
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Personal Characters:
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Honest and trustworthy
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Optimistic
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Enthusiasm
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Reliability
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Dedication
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Courtesy and consideration
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Teamwork:
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Easy to work with
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Teamwork - Complements Others Skills
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Treats others in a respectful and supportive manner
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Communication:
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Listening skills
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Oral and written communication skills
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Ability to present ideas
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Production:
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Self-disciplined, pushing themselves to complete work tasks
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Following orders and/or rules
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Sense of time and schedules
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Leadership:
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Good follower
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Good leader
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Looking at Two Scenarios of an Egyptian Team and a Team from India:
Let us take 10 workers from India and put them in a room with all the necessary
equipment needed for them to do their required tasks. Appoint an additional
supervisor (does not have to be from India) to lead the team.
The following is our observation:
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The ten workers will very much follow every order and perform all required tasks.
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Work would be done according to Supervisor orders.
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Help and information sharing is done in a professional manner.
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The team daily tasks would be done with hardly any arguments or disputes.
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The team can continuously work for over two years with consistency and integrity.
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The team members will show up to work on time and may work overtime with hardly any complaints.
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Let us take 10 Egyptian workers and put them in a room with all the necessary
equipment needed for them to do their required tasks. Appoint an additional
Egyptian supervisor to lead the team. Let us breakdown the outcome:
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The ten Egyptian workers will turn into mobs or teams with one intention: to take control of the project.
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Disagreements on who owns what part of the project would be disputed on a continuous basis.
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No information sharing among the team members.
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No help would be provided nor the supervisor will encourage such practice.
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No one will follow rules or the supervisor's orders or instructions.
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Only two workers out of the entire team will be doing their required tasks and the rest would be consumed with the mobs' quarrel.
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You may find one of the workers is actually doing his best to sabotage the entire project.
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Bad or loud arguments will break out often between the mobs and it may end in a fistfight.
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There are constant complaints coming out the mobs and every worker
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Very few workers would show up to the workplace on time.
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The Egyptian team scenario may be a little bit exaggerated , but what is mentioned does take place.
Another observation about Egyptian workers is as follows:
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They work better among nationalities other than Arab. They take pride in showing that Egyptians are good people with great work ethics.
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If only one Egyptian working for a team of X number of foreigners, he would be the nicest and hardest working individual in the team to prove that Egyptians are good people with great work ethics.
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They work better if they are supervised by an American or European supervisor with the same intent of showing Egyptians are good people with great work ethics.
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Sadly to say even Egyptians who lived outside Egypt, will show the very same attitudes
and bad work ethics if he ends up working with other Egyptians in Egypt or outside Egypt.
According to stories from the old Egyptian workers, such attitudes did not exist
about 50 years ago. Egyptian farmers, years ago had a strong sense of community.
Strangers would go out of their way to help anyone and anything in need. For example,
an entire village would practically freeze and all the men and women would go to help a wrongly
arrested person by the police. They would not stop or leave the police station until the wrongly
arrested person is freed.
Our Questions here would be:
Has such an attitude been introduced by the new regimes of Nassir, Sadat and Mubarak?
Can such an attitude can be reversed and how?
Provide Guidelines on How to Help Egypt's Labor Force:
We may conclude that Egyptian pride is only shown and proven its existence when Egyptians deal with foreigners.
At the same time Egyptian pride is dead among Egyptians and only the negative attitudes
are presented to other Egyptians. In short, Egyptians do not take pride in dealing with other Egyptians.
The answer to any problem starts with education and even an education designed to improve attitude.
We need to brainstorm such topics.
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